John Nuttall, left, and Amanda Korody, leave jail after a judge ruled the couple were entrapped by the RCMP in a police-manufactured crime, in Vancouver, B.C., on Friday July 29, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

B.C. Court of Appeal to rule in terror case that centres on RCMP conduct

B.C.’s appeal court is scheduled to release a decision today on a couple whose guilty verdict over plotting to blow up the provincial legislature was thrown out by a lower court judge.

British Columbia’s Appeal Court is scheduled to release a decision today on a couple whose guilty verdict over plotting to blow up the provincial legislature was thrown out by a lower court judge.

The Crown argued at an appeal hearing in January that B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bruce had no basis to conclude the RCMP manipulated John Nuttall and Amanda Korody into planting explosive devices around the legislature.

In June 2015, a jury found Nuttall and Korody guilty of conspiring to commit murder, possessing an explosive substance and placing an explosive in a public place on behalf of a terrorist group.

The convictions were put on hold until 2016 when Bruce ruled they had been entrapped by police, who she said used trickery, deceit and veiled threats to engineer the bomb plot.

Lawyers for Nuttall and Korody said there was no reason to reverse the stays of proceedings, arguing the couple feared they would be killed by the shadowy terrorist group if they didn’t follow through with the bomb plot.

Nuttall and Korody were arrested on Canada Day 2013 and charged with multiple terrorism-related offences after planting what they thought were pressure-cooker bombs at legislature.

Defence lawyers have argued the RCMP acted on unreasonable suspicions to exploit two vulnerable people, steering them towards a manufactured crime that was planned, prepared and all but carried out by police.